Some tweets are better left on draft. While the serotonin kick from getting likes and retweets might be lowkey addicting, you always need to be careful about what you post. Sometimes it’s making sure that when you’re speaking up about what you believe in—especially when it comes to human rights or social issues like the Anti-Terror Law or an out-of-touch campaign—you’re making sure that what you’re saying is correct, backed up by facts and not unintentionally insensitive. Other times, it means checking that you’re not oversharing or divulging personal details that may endanger your safety.
Once it’s out, it’s out
Sure, we can post whatever we want on social media, but we need to understand that once it’s out, you can’t completely scrub it off the internet. For example, back in March, several influencers and personalities freely expressed their opinions about the pandemic being a “cure” and calling those facing the brunt of it “inspiring.” Most of them were called out for expressing their tone-deaf opinions to which they already apologized for and deleted their posts.
However, just because their posts are gone now, it doesn’t mean that it’s disappeared from the internet. You could still find copies of the original posts online since a lot of people kept screenshots and uploaded them on social media. Some of these circulated so much that they turned into memes, which only led to more people finding out about these posts.
Think again (and again) before you post
We’ve heard the advice of thinking twice before posting on social media repeated countless times already. However, there’s more to it than just avoiding backlash.
Before you put your takes out in the open, think about the content of what you’re going to say: Is the tone off? Is what you’re going to say accidentally incriminating or revealing your or somebody else’s personal information? It’s also important to read the room because what you’re going to post may not look inherently wrong to you, but it could be offensive and harmful to others.
Flexing something you know you did wrong doesn’t make you look cool
When it comes to riding with the trends, it can be tempting to share your opinions or experiences for the sake of people finding it funny or relatable. However, you need to be careful because you might be incriminating yourself and the people involved in your story.
If what you wanted to share was a recollection of a past mistake you did out of desperation or something you just realized was wrong all along, ask yourself: Why do you want to be posting this story? Will this story do more harm than good? And what have you done to correct yourself? (Or have you done anything to correct yourself at all?) Are you writing about this to take accountability for your past actions, or do you just want to pass on a cool and edgy story about yourself for the clout?
And no, writing something like “I know this is wrong, but…” or “This wasn’t a good thing I did…” and proceeding to unapologetically share your experience like a bad bitch does not cancel it out. If you’re proud of what you did to torment others in the past and do decide to post your story, then maybe you do deserve to face its consequences.
Art by Dana Calvo
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